A ship is the nearest thing to dreams that hands have ever made, for somewhere deep in their oaken hearts the soul of a song is laid.
Robert Rose, Manchester ~1840
It is difficult to articulate the sense of pride that comes with building a boat. As an assortment of wood is cut, sanded down and joined the many pieces slowly come together to give voice the boat. It’s easy to see at this point why boats have always been referred to in a living sense. You touch it, mould it and slowly she starts to speak back to you, asserting her own opinion on the build. A soul is born.
Another sunny day in the port town of Fremantle. Chris and I unlocked the container to find the boat still in one piece – always a bonus! We set about firming up the base and first side planks. I’d remembered to bring Phil the Drill so the half dozen missing holes were drilled quickly and stitched with copper wire.
We had left all the stitching loose last time so that we could flex the planks into place and keep the stress out of the wood. Now that we could stitch the bow and transom we went back over every stitch making them tight. This created a wonderful curved shape and the beginnings of a hull.
Next we brought over the second layer of planks. Remember those little tabs that we weren’t sure if they were important or not and then turned out to be excess? Well, back at it with these planks and some sandpaper.
We then proceeded to stitch these planks on, loosely, to the bulkheads and overlapping the first planks. The bow needed some sanding so that they would smoothly join together and then…
We stood back and admired the lines.
